Drama Mr Wheeler

English

Aims and Objectives

In Year 9, boys continue to develop confidence and competence through exposure to a rich and varied literary heritage. Pupils refine their skills in drafting and improve their ability to write at length. Boys are expected to read increasingly challenging material independently.

We seek to develop in the boys a capacity for sustained, focused attention in order to identify the complexities and nuances of texts. We want them to show a willingness to take risks — to respond honestly and to challenge texts and themselves. Boys will gain a knowledge of other places, periods and people and will learn about cultures and worldviews different from their own. They will engage with ideas that may challenge their own values or beliefs, but they will also come to understand and appreciate what we all have in common. In this way, literature engages them in reflection and rumination as readers, but also as citizens of a wider world. This enabling form of knowledge is essential to function as a fully enfranchised pupil in the 21st century.

Primary text types: at least one of these text types will form the backbone of your son's experience across this term. He may explore a longer text across the whole term, or a range of shorter texts. In this case not all texts need to be from the primary text type.

Primary writing focus: at least three pieces of writing your son completes across the course of the term will be of this type. In addition, he will do a wide variety of speaking and listening activities, as well as other types of writing.

Term Primary text type Primary writing focus Pupils should be able to

Autumn

Spring Shakespeare, e.g.:

• Romeo and Juliet • Othello

Novel/short stories/other prose fiction, e.g.: • Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck • To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee • 1984 - George Orwell PEA+: Analysing character, language and structure Produce at least three clear, detailed and increasingly complex pieces of analytical writing, using PEA+ to explore the text(s) they are studying.

Creative: Writing to explore/imagine/describe and argue/persuade/review Produce at least three highquality pieces of creative writing to suit a range of tasks and audiences.

Summer

Poetry/non-fiction, e.g.: • Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson • Y9 poetry anthology PEA+: Analysing character, language and structure Produce at least three clear, detailed and increasingly complex pieces of analytical writing, using PEA+ to explore the text(s) they are studying.

Suggested further reading:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini Maus by Art Speigelmann Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Annexed by Sharon Dogar Everyone knows about Anne Frank, and her life hidden in the secret annexe - or do they? Peter van Pels and his family are locked away in there with the Franks, and Peter sees it all differently. He's a boy, and for a boy it's just not the same. What is it like to be forced into hiding with Anne Frank, to hate her and then find yourself falling in love with her? To know you're being written about in her diary, day after day?

Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman Malorie Blackman explores the unchartered territory of teenage fatherhood. You're waiting for the postman he's bringing your A' level results. University, a career as a journalist - a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it's your old girlfriend; and she's carrying a baby. Your baby.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein This is an award-winning and bestselling tale of friendship and courage. Only in wartime could a stalwart lass from Manchester rub shoulders with a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a special operations executive. When a vital mission goes wrong, and one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France, she is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war.

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels Jakob Beer is seven years old when he is rescued from the muddy ruins of a buried village in Nazi-occupied Poland. Of his family, he is the only one who has survived. Under the guidance of the Greek geologist Athos, Jakob must steel himself to excavate the horrors of his own history.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This is a novel about Africa in a wider sense: about the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast.

Nation by Terry Pratchett On the day the world ends ...Mau is on his way home from the Boys' Island. Soon he will be a man. And then the wave comes - a huge wave, dragging black night behind it and bringing a schooner which sails over and through the island rainforest. The village has gone. The Nation as it was has gone.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro A group of students grow up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, the novel hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, 'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'.

Teacher's Dead by Benjamin Zephaniah A teacher is dead, murdered by two of his students in front of the school. He was a good man. People liked him. So how could this happen? Why? It just doesn't make sense to Jackson, and he is determined to investigate the case until he understands.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness This is a tense, shocking and deeply moving novel of resistance under the most extreme pressure. This is the second book in the Chaos Walking trilogy.